RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP40

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 40 - download now - subscribe now

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James Smith, DC Manager at Layered Technologies joins me today as guest co-host in Art Lindsey's absence. Art is still out on medical leave. In other personal news, we have scheduled a c-section with my wife for Friday, and as such, I will likely put the show on hiatus starting 5/11/2007 for about a week. Stay tuned to Thursday's show for more information on that. James brings us this news item to kick off the show:

Google is at it again – New Data Center in Pryor, OK

Yes, the Internet Giant does not sleep. Google has announced that it will build a 600 (m) million dollar data center on 800 acres at Mid-America Industrial Park in Pryor, Oklahoma.

The center will provide support for Google's numerous Internet services and will hire about 100 people in the coming months.

Officials say employment will eventually reach about 200.
Google is planning to convert a warehouse to open next summer and later add a new building on the site.

James and I strive to point out the flaws in this study, and how popup marketing is different from spyware marketing:

Traffic Fraud Inflates Video Site Popularity
Dotnaught writes "A new study by spyware researcher Ben Edelman finds that spyware-driven traffic inflation is common, particularly at video sites. The study identifies Bolt.com, GrindTV.com, Broadcaster.com, Away.com, RooTV.com, and Diet.com as the beneficiaries of spyware-driven traffic. 'Our measurement systems are inaccurate for the amount of trust we'd like to put into them,' Edelman said. 'So that's the puzzle: How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Outerspace and inter-planetary colonization has begun!:

Earth Bacteria May Hitch A Ride To The Stars
An anonymous reader writes "Space.com has an article on how old rocket stages are carrying bacteria from Earth to interstellar space. For example, four upper rocket stages were used to boost deep space probes Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10 and New Horizons. The spacecraft were sterilized, but the rocket stages were not, and they now carry the bacteria of the engineers who handled them. If the rocket stages hit a habitable planet, and the bacteria survive the journey, they would be able to reproduce and colonize the planet ... not that there's a high liklihood of that. 'In 40,000 years, this wayward 185-pound (84 kilogram) lump of metal will pass by the star AC+79 3888 at a distance of 1.64 light-years. ... Given the sheer expanse of time that lies ahead of the four discarded rockets, at least one is likely to eventually encounter a planet. But even if that planet's environment is conducive to life, the long dormant bacteria will not just gently plop into some exotic ocean. No soft landing can be expected.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My son, Jacob Li Hopkins, is already ranked number 2 in Google:

Google A Curse To Those With Common Names
or people with embarrassing incidents in their past, Google can be a nightmare, as it's become the closest thing there is to an individual's "permanent record". But people whose pasts are fairly clean can have the opposite problem: their Google permanent record gets lost among everyone else who shares their name. This is particularly hard on the John Smiths of the world, who have to compete with thousands of others to receive a prominent listing on the search engine. This also effects people who change their name due to marriage, as a lifetime of electronic references aren't attached to their new name. Parents have even begun using Google before they name their baby, to make sure that the name they choose doesn't have too much online competition. If that practice were to become more widespread, it may force the Freakonomics guys to revisit their theories on baby naming, and the idea that parents intentionally latch onto popular names associated with elite classes. Instead, the moment a name starts to get even remotely popular (or crowded), parents will start searching for something new.

Of course it's irrational. We all know, there is no spoon:

EFF Files Suit Against 'Paranormalist' Uri Geller
Via The EFF.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit Tuesday against Uri Geller -- the "paranormalist" famous for seemingly bending spoons with his mind -- on behalf of a YouTube critic who was silenced by Geller's baseless copyright claims.

EFF's client, Brian Sapient, belongs to a group called the "Rational Response Squad," which is dedicated to debunking what it calls irrational beliefs. As part of their mission, Sapient and others post videos to YouTube that they say demonstrate this irrationality. One of the videos that Sapient uploaded came from a NOVA program called "Secrets of the Psychics," which challenges the performance techniques of Geller.

More here.

Good for Vonage?

AT&T Dumps VOIP Customers
Proudrooster writes "In the past two weeks AT&T has sent out disconnect letters to VOIP customers in big rude red letters, stating that VOIP service will be suspended in 30 days and permanently disconnected in 60 days. They cited E911 service as the reason. (It is peculiar that AT&T is unable overcome an E911 technical hurdle, since SBC/AT&T is also the local landline company in many areas where VOIP cancellation notices are being received.) Many AT&T VOIP customers have found that they are unable to transfer their phone numbers to a new provider. Further, AT&T is unwilling to set up a forwarding message directing callers to a new phone number for those who are unable to transfer their old numbers. In effect, AT&T has told many long-term VOIP subscribers: 'We are turning off your phone in 30 days, goodbye.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Like we said, you screwed up Obama. Now begins your backpedaling!:

Followup to the Obama Story from the UK Telegraph

Unlike at the 2004 election, each major candidate has an online presence on MySpace, YouTube or Facebook. Mr Obama, 45, has offered freshness and youthful appeal, and is often said to relate to the young better than his rivals.

But bloggers reacted negatively to his team’s move, saying they had betrayed the free-wheeling spirit of the internet.

Daily Kos, a leading grassroots blog for Democrat activists, said alienating “your biggest supporters is generally not a wise thing to do”.

Another blogger wrote on Atrios: “I really don’t understand the tendency to treat volunteers as disposable.”

Mr Obama’s advisors, issuing an explanation online, said: “We’re going to try new things and sometimes it’s going to work and sometimes it’s not going to work.”

James and I expound a bit more on the topic Derrick and I broached yesterday:

Leahy, Others Speak Out Against New ID Standards

Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), citing concerns about Americans' privacy, signaled yesterday that he will push to repeal a provision of a 2005 law aimed at creating new government standards for driver's licenses.

Leahy, who has co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to repeal the provision, spoke out as the debate intensified over the Real ID Act, which requires states to create new tamper-proof driver's licenses in line with rules recently issued by the Department of Homeland Security. States must begin to comply by May 2008 but can request more time. After 2013, people whose IDs do not meet those standards will not be allowed to board planes or enter federal buildings.

A similar Democrat-backed bill to repeal the provision is pending in the House. At least seven states have passed laws or resolutions opposing implementation of Real ID. Fourteen states have legislation pending. By yesterday, the DHS had received more than 12,000 public comments in response to the rules.

More here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP35

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 35 - download now - subscribe now - iTunes subscribe

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• AACS - Guaranteed improved credit - http://aacsnet.com/ - Mention RizWords and get $50 off your entry to the program.
  

This is a story that really cracks the vernier on Obama's plastic smile. Underneath all that shiny new unspoiled politician lies the heart of... just another backbiting politician:

The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace
By Micah L. Sifry, 05/01/2007 - 11:15pm
In November 2004, Joe Anthony, a paralegal living in Los Angeles, started a unofficial fan page for then-newly-elected Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on MySpace.com. Inspired by Obama's keynote address at that summer's Democratic convention, Anthony had never been politically active before. "I was just blown away," he told me. He put time into the site every day, answering emails from people wanting to "friend" the page, pointing them to voter registration information, and, once Obama threw his hat into the ring, telling them where to find out more detailed positions taken by the candidate.

By the time of Obama's official campaign announcement in late January, Anthony's Obama profile--which had the valuable url of myspace.com/barackobama--already had more than 30,000 friends, well more than the other contenders. Over the following weeks, it continued to grow at a rapid pace, generating lots of headlines about Obama winning the "MySpaceurl has only about 12,000. And it's under new ownership. Joe Anthony, one of the super volunteers of the Connected Age, has lost control of the page he started to the professionals on Obama's staff.

How all this happened is a complicated tale that is still unfolding, and none of the parties involved--Anthony, the Obama online team, and the MySpace political operation--emerge from this story unscathed. Speaking on background, Obama campaign staffers are spreading word that Anthony just wanted a "big payday." Anthony in turn has posted a missive on his blog (that was originally sent to me as an email) accusing the Obama team of "bullying...[and] rotten and dishonest" behavior. However one parses those accusations (more below), the Obama campaign's reputation as the most net-savvy of 2008 has taken a big hit. And MySpace executives have been forced to take extraordinary action to resolve a dispute between two high-profile users of their invaluable site, one a passionate volunteer with a huge network of friends and the other a frontrunning presidential candidate who has helped make MySpace a new factor in the 2008 contest.

primary." Yesterday, the profile had just over 160,000 friends. Today, that This is more politics than tech, but it caught my attention, and I thought it deserved to be addressed:

Top Hamas official: Kill all Americans (Jerusalem Post)
Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One."

In "Advancing-New-Media" news:

Give bloggers Capitol access

This is the first article in a weekly series, exclusively in The Hill, exploring the recommendations of the Sunlight Foundation’s Open House Project, which advocates online transparency in Congress.

Members of Congress are increasingly turning to bloggers as a way to communicate about public policy. Yet these citizen journalists who cover Congress lack what most mainstream reporters in Washington take for granted: access to the U.S. Capitol.

According to the Sunlight Foundation’s Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort to increase the House of Representatives’ online transparency, Congress can take several simple steps to improve transparency and foster a new spirit of openness. Giving bloggers credentials to cover Congress would be a groundbreaking way to shed light on the inner workings of government.

The debate over bloggers and online journalists on Capitol Hill isn’t a new one. In recent years, they’ve clashed with congressional press galleries as the Internet has grown in popularity and prominence.

And in what is probably the biggest tech/politics story of the day:

Digg Surrenders to Mob

To say what happened today on Digg was a “user revolt” is an understatement. The Digg team deleted a story that linked to the decryption key for HD DVDs after receiving a take down demand and all hell broke loose. More stories appeared and were deleted, and users posting the stories were suspended.

That just got the Digg community fired up, and soon the entire Digg home page was filled with stories containing the decryption key. The users had taken control of the site, and unless Digg went into wholesale deletion mode and suspended a large portion of their users, there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson responded on the Digg blog earlier this afternoon but it was clear he did not yet understand the chaos that was coming. The post only added fuel to the fire. Just now, co-founder Kevin Rose posted yet again on the Digg blog, effectively capitulating to the mob’s demands: He says

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Until today, it seems, even Digg didn’t fully understand the power of its community to determine what is “news.” I think the community made their point crystal clear.

Vive La Revolution.

An Interesting News Weekend.

There were a lot of things interesting about this weekend’s news, aside from the endless barrage of Anna Nicole crap, and the Barrack Obama lovefest. I know I’m not the only one who thinks of Alfred E. Neuman every time I see this joker, but to prove it to you, peep this:

At any rate, I was woken up to the news this morning that Jesus’s divinity had been totally debunked by James Cameron. Yes, I repeat, James Cameron.

The upshot is that James Cameron has such a hard-on for the factually inept DaVinci Code that he roped the rubes at the Discovery Channel into giving him some money to dig up some 2000 year old graves in Jerusalem so he could get DNA evidence that Jesus did the nasty with a whore, had some kids, and therefore was not a worthy sacrifice for the sins of all humanity when he died on the cross, so we’re all going to go to hell.

Thanks a lot, Jim.

This sounds like a messed up dream or something, but it’s not.

I won’t go into debunking Jimmy-boy’s idiocy but to say that most of what he said and posited is debunked in your standard book review of the Da Vinci Code.  Check out this link for a good starting point.

Then there were the Oscars. Al Gore won for Best Powerpoint Presentation, a new category I intend to enter next year with my presentation on Rizzn.Com Stats Analysis: A history of a mediocre website.  Move over, Al, I’m gunnin’ for ya!

Then there is this ‘Super-Size Tuesday’ thing, a move to completely eliminate the slim chance that minor candidates have in achieving success on a national presidential bid. This is another step in destroying the process. In America, the idea is that anyone can be an elected official, and the longer we progress with the current establishment doing things like this... the close we become to a class system – where you have to play ball with the corrupt 'aristocracy' to get elected.

It hasn’t always been that way. It used to be more of a meritocracy, but it's not that anymore. If you had the skills in the past, you could get elected. Of course, you had to come from some kind of upper class background to get the skills. Now, everyone has access to get the skills. But they move the bar so that you have to have massive amounts of money and skills.

Ah, well. Plenty of stuff to make my hair go grey lately.  Just throw this up on the pile.  See ya later, folks.

/rizzn